


Skin

by Thimblerig



Series: Scenes From A War [7]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Dom/sub Undertones, Explicit Consent, Hypersensitivity, M/M, Smut, sensual massage, smut with feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 05:07:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15187457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig
Summary: He looks at you, in the light of a daisy-small candle flame, with fond amusement. “You sound, my friend, like you’re gentling a skittish virgin. I’ve not been skittish in my life. Even the first time, I knew what to do.”“I imagine you did,” you answer easily. “It’s still been a long time without a kiss.”





	Skin

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Coming Clean](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14969975) by [Thimblerig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thimblerig/pseuds/Thimblerig). 



> This follows directly from "Coming Clean" but I think stands on its own pretty well.
> 
> CW: There's a brief reference to past self-harm somewhere in the middle, and a mild freakout. Fun-times do resume.

“Bears be brought forth all foul and transformed and after that by licking... they be brought into their kindly shape.”  
  
\- _The Pilgrimage of Souls,_ Guillaume de Deguileville, trans. 1413.

 

“If it goes a bit fast or loud,” you say softly, “just pat your hand, like this.” You demonstrate on Aramis’ leather-clad knee, as he sits beside you on the bed. “Or, you know, say something.”  
  
He looks at you, in the light of a daisy-small candle flame, with fond amusement. “You sound, my friend, like you’re gentling a skittish virgin. I’ve not been skittish in my life. Even the first time, I knew what to do.”  
  
“I imagine you did,” you answer easily. You’re barely dressed, the pair of you, calico shirts and leather breeches hastily pulled on to get you from the Garrison bath-house to your shared quarters in a semblance of respectability. He smells of soap, under the grey shirt, and his hair is damp. “It’s still been a long time without a kiss.”  
  
He blows air through his lips, _pfft,_ too fond to be derisive. In answer you curl your fingers over his inner knee and his head nearly hits the low ceiling above. “I concede your point,” he says ruefully, settling back down beside you.  
  
“It’s not a contest,” you answer back, grinning. The pair of you have been sharing this room for months; it’s only tonight that your skin feels raw. You nudge his solid shoulder with your own, friendly as a horse. “Aramis. I’d like to take care of you tonight. Would you like me to do that?”  
  
He gives you one of his _looks,_ intent and thoughtful, as if for a moment he’s plumbing the depths of your soul. (Always thinking, this one, even in sex. _Especially_ in sex.) “Yes,” he says slowly, eyes holding yours. His chin comes up a tick. “Yes, Porthos, I would like that.” So you kiss him.  
  
It’s one of your better ones, soft and warm and friendly, and you steady the pair of you with a hand curled around the back of his neck, and fingers threaded into his hair. With your eyes closed and the tickle of whiskers it’s almost as if it hasn’t been years; a familiar, comfortable heat pools in your groin and your breath roughens. His hand comes up, to curl around the ball of your shoulder, and he pats you, soft as a songbird alighting.  
  
“Sorry,” he whispers, as you pull away. “It really has been a while.” There is no word in creation to describe the twist of his mouth. You sit straighter, to kiss his forehead, then rest your own against it.  
  
“If you take your shirt off,” you say after a time, low and encouraging, “I will rub your back for you.” He tilts his head a little, then nods, birdlike again. You hear the rustle of cloth and the creak of the strapping that holds up the mattress as you sort through your kit for the flask of sweet oil that you use to keep your leather armour fresh and supple. He will smell of you, tomorrow, and you’re not coy enough to deny that pleases you.  
  
The boiled-leather flask is almost full when you shake it. You take your time, warming a generous splash of the oil between your palms and resting them on the tight muscles between his shoulder-blades for a breath before stroking downwards, deep and sure, a firmer touch than currying a horse but the intent is the same: to soothe. The gooseflesh in his skin fades as his back relaxes and he sighs, his head drooping on the pillow. His ears are still pricked - he’s listening to you intently - but he’s content to let you work at his flesh as they say a bear-cub is shaped by its parents. You open out his left arm to work on the shoulder, mildly knotted from labour on the training ground, then the right, worse, from the ghost of an old wound and hours of bracing against the recoil of a long gun.  
  
A mild nudge to his side has him rolling over, eyes black under heavy lids, eyes that follow your every movement. His fingers tangle with yours as you bring his arms over his head, open to let your hands dig into tense muscles in his forearms and then trail down his sides to frame his ribs. You dip your head to blow air into the ruffle of hair in one armpit and he gasps, then mouths a nearly silent obscenity at you. Chuckling, you kiss one red-purple slash of a scar in his ribs and then, as his head tilts back to open out his throat, the notch between his collarbones.  
  
Sitting back up, you return to the massage, stroking and rubbing and easing tension until you rest one hand on the row of buttons at his waistband and ask, “Can I?”  
  
There’s some, ah, _interest_ evident in his breeches but he shakes his head infinitesimally, a spark - of mirth? curiosity? - in his eyes. You shift your hand instead to the warm oiled skin of his waist and settle comfortably by his side where you can kiss him on the mouth at leisure and he can return it.  
  
You’ve been with women who kissed fierce as a bee-sting, and men who kissed slow and sweet like honey dripping from the comb, a multitude of flavours in-between: none of them ever quite like Aramis. He stays with it this time, sneaking a hand down to slip into the oiled curls of your scalp until you yourself are shivering, then creep down the line of your back to knead one of your buttocks. He guides you over him until you are nestled with one knee between his and your crotch resting over his thigh, then he tucks up one leg and rocks into you, a familiar, comforting rhythm. It’s too familiar, too practiced - he’s thinking again.  
  
Using elbows and knees you lift yourself up then drop on top of him with nearly your full weight, torso to torso, prisoning his legs with your own. The air leaves him, _oof,_ then he starts to giggle. Catching his hands, you stretch his arms above his head again, feeling his ribs flutter beneath you. “I quite like having you at my mercy,” you tell him and he smiles, cat-like. “Alright down there?”  
  
Aramis blinks, considering. “Get these breeches off of me,” he tells you.  
  
“Done.”  
  
“Yours off, too.”  
  
“Maybe I’m shy.” He rolls his hips beneath you but you raise up a little, staring at him until he settles.  
  
He cocks his head. “Your hands, in my hair, pulling. Your teeth, in my skin, biting. I want your marks on me when this is done.”  
  
You kiss his mouth to seal it, then, “If it gets too loud,” you remind him, and he claps his hands lightly three times, keeping his arms stretched up as if they were bound with rope. You bury your hands in his wild hair and kiss him again, tangling your fingers well in and, as his head tilts back, _hold_ him there will-he nill-he, nuzzling under his jaw and mouthing down the pulsing artery in his throat. Aramis’ chest heaves under you; the hard knot of his adam’s apple moves under your lips. Chuckling lightly, you bring teeth to it, nibbling skin tender under his stubble. He twitches, straining against your hands.  
  
Suddenly, all you can see is a handful of cords, knotted to bruise, to break the skin. Did he move like that, at the monastery, under the lash of his cord of discipline? Did one of the monks do the flogging or did he wield it himself, how many times before the scars stopped fading…? _Whptsh._  
  
Of their own will your hands release their grip and he actually _whines._  
  
Aramis’ head lifts off the pillow and he studies your face, eyes narrowed, then lifts himself up with one easy movement to manoeuvre you onto your side, facing him. _Shhh…_ he breathes, his hand on your arm. _Shhh…_  
  
“I’m supposed to be driving you out of your mind with bliss tonight,” you tell him, smiling.  
  
“Doing pretty well so far,” he breathes, kissing your forehead, then one eyelid, and another, cradling your face with his hands. He rests his forehead against yours and lets you breathe.  
  
After a time and a time you tap the point of his hip. “Turn over,” you say, and he does, nestling his back against your chest, only the rough calico of your shirt between you. With your hand again on the buttons of his breeches you feel him nod and, nimble as any child pickpocket, work them open.  
  
He whines again as the cool air touches heated skin and you chuckle, peeling back the leather and tugging it down from his raised hips so that he can kick the last of his clothing off. “Laugh it off,” he whispers, then near howls as you pour a trail of cold oil down his thigh. Kissing the point of his shoulder you trace your hand down his legs, as much you can reach, shaping and kneading. He no longer flinches when you touch his inner knee. _“Damn_ it, Porthos,” he mutters, as your hand brushes past his erect prick on its way to rest on his lower belly. “Your death, when it comes, shall not be merciful.”  
  
Kissing him where shoulder joins neck, you pull him back into the heat of your groin. “Want to take this further?”  
  
_“Pl-ease…”_  
  
You nudge one of his knees up, then whine yourself, unbuttoning: your own prick hard, the oil cold, the cleft between his buttocks hot as burning.  
  
“... Are you going to touch me now?”  
  
“I _am_ touching you.” With your hand again on his lower belly, where a trail of hair thickens to the cluster of curls at his groin, where the muscles flutter against your touch, you pull him more firmly against you, moving slow and steady as a tide. He hisses when you nudge his ballsack from behind, fisting one hand in the sheet, reaching blindly behind him to grip your free hand. One foot scrabbles for purchase, uselessly, as his whole body moves with the rhythm you set, his prick brushing just lightly against your knuckles with every thrust you make.  
  
“Touch,” he whispers, and, “please,” then a string of obscenity or prayer or poetry, until all he does is breathe with you, move with you, sing with his body. The little candle is near guttering - snapping your hips, you kiss the meat of his shoulder once, twice, then open your mouth and _bite._  
  
His cry as he spends is the call of a lost bird.  
  
Two thrusts of your own and you join him, spending between his thighs... The candle dies.  
  
In the darkness, when you can think again, you nudge his arm and say, “Now tell me that wasn’t fun.”  
  
A breath, and another. “I’m still not sleeping in the damp spot. _Oof,”_ Aramis adds, as you elbow him again. He rolls over and slips his hands under your shirt, warm against the skin, and wraps around you.  
  
“Cloth,” you manage. “Clean up.”  
  
“Mmm,” he answers, nuzzling his face into your chest. There’s another bed in this room, with clean sheets and a nice pillow. It might as well be a hundred miles away, for all the good it does now.  
  
Sighing, you flop your head against the mattress and wrap your arm across his shoulders. “Promise you’ll be here in the morning.”  
  
He hums agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> // _as they say a bear-cub is shaped by its parents_ \- The 4th Century Roman writer Donatus made reference to this belief, as did the 11th Century Arab doctor Avicenna and the phrase first makes an appearance in the English language in 1413, in a translation of de Guilleville’s book The Pilgrimage of Souls: “Bears be brought forth all foul and transformed and after that by licking of the father and the mother they be brought into their kindly shape.” - http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2012/02/frasers-phrases-needs-licking-into-shape


End file.
